26 January 2008
Vertical vs. Horizontal Lives
I’m no theologian. Nevertheless, I was surprised by Adam Gopnik’s review in the January 21, 2008, New Yorker of “This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War,” by Drew Gilpin Faust. In it he proposed that ordinary people’s concept of the location of their existence has shifted from between heaven and hell to between the past and the future. This is out of keeping with my understanding of not only Jewish culture, but also Buddhist, Hindu, and animist faiths.
Many in this world have long brought meaning to their lives and deaths in the context of a continuum of human existence. It is an unselfish guide for one’s behavior compared to the individualism of Western Christian tradition. That tradition has produced the most successful economies in history, but at the cost of a firm tether between each person and preceding and succeeding generations. Concern for the environment has led the way towards resurgence of this horizontal metaphysical principle, or perhaps the other way around.
Does violent killing lose its senselessness in the context of the circle of life? Or is it only consequently easier to live with?
I’m no theologian. Nevertheless, I was surprised by Adam Gopnik’s review in the January 21, 2008, New Yorker of “This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War,” by Drew Gilpin Faust. In it he proposed that ordinary people’s concept of the location of their existence has shifted from between heaven and hell to between the past and the future. This is out of keeping with my understanding of not only Jewish culture, but also Buddhist, Hindu, and animist faiths.
Many in this world have long brought meaning to their lives and deaths in the context of a continuum of human existence. It is an unselfish guide for one’s behavior compared to the individualism of Western Christian tradition. That tradition has produced the most successful economies in history, but at the cost of a firm tether between each person and preceding and succeeding generations. Concern for the environment has led the way towards resurgence of this horizontal metaphysical principle, or perhaps the other way around.
Does violent killing lose its senselessness in the context of the circle of life? Or is it only consequently easier to live with?
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